The Only Way It's Ever Happened

Rev. Chip Robertson | Click/tap here to view the Sermon Reflection Guide.

Maybe you’ve built a house, paid someone to build one, or at least walked by a house being built. Sometimes an old house is torn down. Sometimes the land is cleared of brush and trees. Sometimes the land seems ready without much work, but it isn’t.

The most important part of the house requires more than clearing. It requires that the land be ravaged by heavy equipment, dirt moved, and sometimes hauled away. Holes must be drilled deep enough to hit bedrock. The land that seemed just fine is now scarred and battered, all because destruction is required before construction can begin, and because of that destruction, the foundation will be able to do its job. From that foundation, the foundation that required the removal of so much that seemed fine but was too weak to be of use, the house can begin to rise toward the sky.

We think of the Beatitudes as nice teachings—soft things.

But what if they are that and something else too? What if they are also clearing the land so that we can see the foundation of the kingdom of God? And what if they are arranged to suggest three steps for us: we kneel, then rise, then walk.